‘Fuck, that was close!’ he said, reaching out in the darkness to take David’s shaking hand in his.
‘Almost through, I think…’ Came Tom’s voice, as he continued to smash away at the tiles.
Then, without warning, there was a crashing sound and the loft space above the ceiling was suddenly flooded with a pale moonlight.
‘Hang on,’ said Tom, continuing to smash away at the now loose tiles, ‘I’ll make it a bit bigger.’
With a clatter many more roof tiles slipped from their positions and fell to the ground below, smashing. Now that there was a sizable hole in the roof a cool night breeze drifted through the loft space, unfortunately bringing with it more horrific sounds of carnage and bloodshed.
‘So what are we going to do now?’ asked Tyrone, wiping the sweat from his forehead on the crook of his elbow. ‘Wait up here until they slow down and we have a chance of killing the bastards… or do we try to make it to the carts?’
‘There’s too many of them down there,’ began Charlie, raising his voice to be heard over the constant growling of the Dead below them. ‘They’ve seen us come up here and now they’ll bay at that hole until the flesh rots on their bones… unless they see something else to draw them away.’
Each of them knew that when Charlie said ‘something else’ he really meant ‘someone else’ and unless the Dead were tempted away by the promise of more readily available flesh to feast upon, nothing would move them from under the hole in the ceiling.
‘Anyway, they’re so tightly packed down there we wouldn’t be halfway to the table before we got our arses eaten off,’ added Phil, glancing back down at the Dead as they reached for him with blood covered limbs.
He was about to turn away when something worrying caught his eye. Beneath him two Dead men, a Dead woman and what looked to be Dead girl who had much of the flesh missing from below her waist, had managed to pull themselves up onto the table. Even as he watched the girl latched onto the back of one of the larger Dead men and with hooked fingers, broken and covered in congealing blood, she began to pull herself upwards. Oblivious to the Dead girl climbing up his back the man continued to reach for the living flesh just out of his reach but if the girl manage to pull herself to his shoulders Phil knew she might just be able to latch onto the edge of the hole to pull herself up. He could see the scenario playing itself out in his head. With the knife strapped to his calf he would give the girl the peace of true Death only for her corpse to fall and then be used as a stepping stone for the other Dead below him. Before long another would manage to somehow get within reaching distance and so the mound of corpses on the table would grow until nothing could keep them from clambering into the loft space with them.
‘No, we need to get out of here…’ continued Phil, looking away from the ravenous corpses to the worried faces of the group. ‘Going down there isn’t an option.’
‘Right… Out it is then,’ said Tom, smashing away at a few more of the loose tiles.
Hunched over against the eaves of the roof, Charlie carefully stepped from one joist to the next to join Tom by the opening. Peering down he was relieved to see the moss clogged guttering only less than a metre away from him and to their left, tantalisingly close, the corner of the roof with a sturdy looking drainpipe running to the ground.
‘Think we can get down that?’ he asked, looking back at Tom.
‘Most of us, yes,’ he replied, glancing over his shoulder before continuing, ‘but what about Carmella?’
‘Carmella will climb down if that is the only way,’ came the young Italian woman’s voice from behind them. ‘I… I will not let my baby die here…’
‘Carmella,’ interrupted Vincenzo, turning his wife’s face to look at him, ‘do not speak of such things, all will be fine. We will get to the carts and leave this place of death behind us. We will find a new home… I promise.’
Tom and Charlie shared a knowing look. They both knew Vincenzo was making promises he simply could not keep. For nothing could be promised in this world of the Dead, especially a future.
‘OK… Now we just have to hope there’s not too many of the Dead down there waiting for us…’ mumbled Charlie, leaning forward trying to get a better look at the dark grounds of the Institute around them.
The Carmichael Institute with its long winding drive way, small woodland that ran along one of its high boundary walls and the rolling lawns, that had been turned into a patchwork of vegetable gardens, had seemed an ideal place to build a sanctuary against the Dead but with those very Dead now stalking its shadows the survivors realised getting out alive may prove impossible.
Suddenly, as Charlie planned the order they would descend, a man broke free of the small woodland to his right. With his head spinning left and then right the man paused before sprinting from the trees as if the hounds of hell were on his heels. Unsurprisingly a second figure, a woman bloody and ravaged, abruptly pushed through the tree-line a few seconds after him. Taking only a moment to latch her Dead sight on the fleeing man, the Dead woman bounded after him. Stupidly the man turned his head to see how far his pursuer was behind him and it proved to be his undoing. Without looking where he was going he ran straight into a low water trough that ran along a patch of runner beans and cabbages. With a crash the man went down, a tangle of limbs and bean poles. As quickly as he tried to right himself, the Dead woman was quicker and before he had even got to his knees she was on him. Almost launching herself at the terrified man, the Dead woman dived for the exposed flesh of his neck. With a scream that ripped through the darkness, Charlie and Tom watched, unable to help or tear their eyes away, as the Dead woman slowly drew back her head. The further she pulled back, the higher the man’s screams rose in pitch. But skin and flesh can only withstand so must abuse and as his screaming suddenly turned to a wet choking sound, the Dead woman finally tore free her prize. Greedily chewing on the stolen flesh, her hands continued to dart forward to rip and tear at the man’s neck, such was her need to consume the bloody flesh in front of her. The man’s struggling began to weaken and as his blood rained down upon them both, baptising him into a world of Death and horror, he mercifully died. The Dead woman forced one more chunk of flesh from the man’s chest into her mouth before stopping. For a moment it looked as if confusion flitted across her Dead features, unable to understand why the tantalising flesh that moments ago had enraptured her so now held no interest at all. But her slowly decaying brain could no longer process or manipulate such a quandary before her, so pushing herself up from the man’s blood splattered death bed among the cabbages, she ran off in search of the living.
‘Jesus,’ whispered Tom, looking at the man’s still and ruined body below them.
Both men knew what would happen next and sure enough within a few minutes of his death, the murdered man’s right hand suddenly began to spasm as if a bolt of electricity had shot through it. With his blood covered fingers seemingly to clench and unclench of their own accord, his left leg also began to twitch, kicking out against one of the broken bean poles. Then without warning the man abruptly sat up. Seeing the world for the first time through his milky film-covered eyes, the Dead man seemed to look about almost as if searching for something. A cry of pain from somewhere in the grounds and his head snapped sharply to the right. Somehow the Dead man knew this signalled the presence of something he needed desperately, something that would quench the burning hunger that raged at his very core. Pushing himself shakily to his feet, it took a moment for whatever had caused his corpse to reanimate to fully take control of his dead limbs and after only the smallest of uncertainty with his first step, the man was off.
‘I think we should try to get down there while we have the chance,’ said Charlie, watching the Dead man sprint off into the darkness.
‘Hmmm…’ replied Tom, wondering just how many of the hungry corpses were roaming the grounds. ‘Before any more company turns up.’
‘Right… Sorry Phil but I need you to go down first,’ said Charlie,
turning back to the group. ‘You’re the heaviest and if the drainpipe will hold you, it’ll hold all of us.’
‘Great,’ Phil mumbled, making his way over to the hole in the roof.
Pausing as he ducked to step through the gap, Phil pulled the hunting knife from the sheath on his calf and put the blade between his teeth. If he met with unwanted company when he got to the ground, he wanted to be ready for it. Using one of the exposed beams for support, he slowly edged out onto the roof. As he did so, a final roof tile slipped free to fall and smash on the ground below him.
‘Fucking great,’ he garbled past the knife between his teeth.
The corner of the roof was barely a metre away but Phil was still grateful when his fingers finally latched onto the thicker corner tiles. Now that he had something to grip onto, it was an easy task for him to pull himself over to where the clogged guttering met the sturdy looking drainpipe. Despite the building being quite old, Phil could tell that no corners had been cut in the construction and as he got down on his stomach to lower his legs over the edge of the roof he hoped this had stretched as far as the drainpipe fixings as well. With his legs at last dangling over the lip of the roof, Phil was about to begin his descent when from somewhere in the grounds an owl hooted. Phil froze in his movements and looked back over to the gaping hole in the roof where Charlie held his hand for him to stop. They had all heard this owl before, it was well known to them and as a signal it meant they may just finally have been given a break. Sure enough as Phil hung mid-air craning his neck to see below him, the welcome sight of one of their carts appeared from the darkness of the grounds. With the creaking of its large wheels, the horse drawn cart came to a stop as close to the wall as whoever was driving could manage to get.
‘Phil,’ someone hissed below him. ‘Need a lift?’
Pulling his legs back onto the roof, Phil peered over the edge to see the smiling face of Cam looking up at him through the cart’s open roof hatch some five metres below him.
‘What took you?’ Phil whispered down, smiling, never so relieved to see Cam and the cart being pulled by Snow, one of their trusty old mares.
Cam had been a television journalist for the BBC before the world descended in blood and madness. He had spent those first few weeks reporting the fall of Man one battle against the Dead at a time until there was simply no electricity and more importantly, no one left to watch him.
‘Hang on…’ said Cam, waving before disappearing into the shadows of the cart.
Phil knew what he was doing, Cam was checking through the spy holes in the cart wooden walls for any sign of the Dead so that he didn’t expose himself to milky eyes searching for living flesh to consume. With thankfully nothing but empty darkness in sight Cam reappeared and began to climb up through the roof hatch with a length of rope over his shoulder.
‘Over to Charlie,’ whispered Phil, knowing it would be easier for the others to get down to the cart if they could skip getting to the corner of the roof entirely.
With a nod, Cam took a moment to take aim and tried to toss the rope up to Tom and Charlie waiting by the hole. On the third attempt Tom managed to grab hold of the rope as it flew towards him and once he had taken up the slack, he returned to the shadows of the loft space to tie it off on one of the sturdier looking ceiling beams.
‘Carmella, we’ll get you down first…’ Began Charlie, pulling the other end of the length of rope up into the loft space. ‘Vincenzo, tie it round her so we can lower her down.’
‘Si, Charlie,’ said Vincenzo, taking the rope and passing under his wife’s arms.
Once the rope was securely tied about Carmella, with Vincenzo’s help she slowly made her way over to the gaping hole in the roof, stepping carefully from one ceiling beam to the next while the Dead raged below them.
‘Ready?’ asked Tom, trying to give the scared woman a reassuring smile. ‘Don’t worry, the other end of the rope’s tied off… we won’t let you fall. OK.’
With a not very convincing nod, Carmella stepped out onto the roof and began to lower herself to the edge.
‘Non ti preoccupare, tu sarai al sicuro,’ Vincenzo whispered, reaching out to give Carmella’s hand a final squeeze as she wriggled her legs over the edge of the guttering.
Charlie knew the man was telling his wife not to worry and as Tom and Vincenzo took the strain, Charlie wrapped the rope around his arm to control her descent. It didn’t take long for Carmella’s feet to finally touch down on the roof of the cart and while Cam released her from the rope she briefly waved reassuringly up at Vincenzo and Charlie before disappearing through the roof hatch.
With Carmella now safely hidden by the walls of the cart, the others began to abseil down the rope to join her. Vincenzo had gone next, followed by Paul, Tyrone and then David, while Phil rather than bother to make his way back from the corner of the roof had decided to climb down the drain pipe after all.
It had all gone smoothly and without incident until Tom had lowered himself over the edge with Anne clinging tightly to his back. With her arms tight about his neck and her legs wrapped about his waist, Anne’s frightened gaze fixed on her sister above her. Tom was still a few metres from the roof of the cart when Charlie suddenly yanked sharply on the rope, warning him of danger. Immediately Tom froze, knowing there was only one danger worth halting their descent for. Slowly moving his head to one side, Tom soon found the cause for concern. There, loping through the darkness towards them, were two Dead men. The first had had most of the flesh savagely torn from his face while the second clearly had died as Dead hands ripped open his stomach to feast upon his organs and even now, from the bloody gaping hole the last remnants of his intestines trailed behind him. Tom knew any movement would attract the two Dead men. So as he hung from the rope, his muscles starting to shake with the strain, he prayed they would soon pass by without noticing the flesh they craved hanging just above their heads. Luckily for Tom, somewhere in the grounds someone else was meeting their end and as the screams of horrendous agony drifted on the breeze, the first of the Dead men span on his heels and darted off to join in the bloody banquet. As he ran past the Dead man with his belly ripped open he knocked into him, sending him tumbling to the ground. With no stomach muscles for support, the Dead man was having difficulty righting himself and as he slowly pushed himself to his knees he inadvertently tilted his head in Tom’s direction. Instantly his slowly decaying brain knew these living things hanging mid-air, just out of his reach, were something his teeth needed to tear into. They held within them that indefinable spark of life, a quality his mind could no longer process but somehow knew his body craved. It would feed the compulsion within him to rip, tear, gorge and consume until he was full and no spark remained. But the Dead man had no way to know he would never feel the release of a full stomach, even if he still had one. For his bloody hands could stuff stolen flesh into his mouth until the muscles rotted on his bones and he would still never feel sated, such was the way of the Dead.
‘Shit!’ said Tom, locking eyes with the Dead man.
But Tom needn’t have worried, for even as the Dead man leant forward to push himself up from his knees, an unnoticed dark form appeared behind him. Suddenly the Dead man’s head snapped violently to one side and then the other as Tyrone rained heavy blows down upon him. By the third blow the back of the Dead man’s skull had been reduced to little more than dark bloody pulp and as he momentarily swayed on his knees, Tyrone brought his pipe down for a killing blow. Realising time was of the essence, Tom continued his descent and by the time his feet finally touched down on the roof of the cart, the Dead man was slumped face down on the grass, truly lifeless at last.
‘Where’s the other cart?’ whispered Charlie, finally closing the roof hatch behind him, as he followed Liz and the others down into the already very cramped cart.
‘Fuck knows!’ replied Michael, glancing over his shoulder but unable to see anything in the darkness. ‘By the time we got there some bastard had nicked it… I doubt
we’ll see the dappled mare or the cart again.’
‘Do you think it could have been Sally?’ asked Liz, only just remembering the woman was missing as Anne climbed onto her arms.
‘I doubt it… At least, not on her own,’ said Charlie quietly, steadying himself against one of the walls when the cart jolted forward. ‘Sally isn’t the type of woman to go it alone.’
‘So what do we do now?’ asked Tom in a low voice. ‘Stay in here or leave?’
‘I say we get out of here,’ said Tyrone. ‘Why risk it?’
‘We’ve got no supplies, hardly any weapons and there are about six bodies too many in here for travelling any distance,’ noted Charlie, realising they may be safe from the Dead for now but in the long run it didn’t look good at all.
‘If someone’s already left then presumably the gate will be open,’ whispered Cam, ‘How about we get to the other side of the wall, close the gate behind us and wait the Dead out until morning…’
‘And then come back to stock up and hopefully find another horse and cart,’ added Charlie. ‘I like it… good idea.’
‘Right then,’ mumbled Michael, gently flicking Snow’s reins.
For the next few minutes the group travelled in silence. Only the creaking of the cart’s wheels, the crunch of gravel under hoof and the distant screams of those unfortunate souls still trapped among the Dead filling their thoughts as Michael guided Snow along the long path to the gate.
‘Can’t see a fucking thing,’ he grumbled, leaning forward to peer through the thin channel cut into the wooden wall in front of him.
Craning his head round to look over Michael’s shoulder at what he could see through the viewing slit, Phil tapped the man and pointed to the left.
‘That’s the edge of the wooded area,’ he whispered, indicating a slightly darker patch of blackness, ‘If you keep that on our left side and the sound of gravel under the wheels we should be…’
Lanherne Chronicles (Prequel): To Escape the Dead Page 3